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ABU DHABI, U.A.E.—From a distance, the rounded dome looks like a giant tortoise slumbering by the tranquil waters of the Persian Gulf.

Upon closer inspection, the din of trucks and heavy drilling reveals a frenzied construction site. Workers are making a final push to complete the long-delayed and controversial Louvre Abu Dhabi museum, which is expected to open later this year. It is a marquee part of the oil-rich emirate’s ambition to transform its arid desert landscape into a global cultural destination.

As an outpost of the Paris institution, no expense has been spared. The construction contract is the equivalent of $850 million (Canadian).

“It’s a milestone,” says Mouza al Qemzi, a young Emirati architect who worked on the project, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel. She is gazing at the low grey building from an elevated viewing platform. “Fifty years ago we couldn’t imagine the U.A.E. would look like this.”

But the project has been controversial from the moment in 2007 that France’s parliament approved a 30-year licencing, branding and training agreement between the two countries worth more than $1.3 billion.

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The New York Times reported at the time that Abu Dhabi was paying the equivalent $680 million (Canadian) simply to use the Louvre name for 30 years. It would also donate $42.5 million to the Paris museum to renovate a wing.

French traditionalists were appalled at the arrangement. A petition entitled “Our museums are not for sale” was signed by 4,700 curators, art historians and archeologists.

The museum has also come under harsh criticism from human rights organizations. Human Rights Watch has issued several reports on the exploitation of construction workers, including wages being withheld, passports confiscated and substandard accommodation.

Still, the Louvre Abu Dhabi is part of a growing globalization of museums, says Martin Kemp, emeritus art history professor at Oxford University in England.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York pioneered the concept when it opened the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain in 1997. Russia’s State Hermitage Museum has outposts in England and the Netherlands.

“It is Abu Dhabi saying ‘We are part of this grand world culture’ in which museums are signature buildings,” said Kemp.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi is meant to be part of a trio of museums on the 16-kilometre Saadiyat Island, which the emirate is developing at a cost of $35 billion. The other two, the Guggenheim and the Zayed national museum, have faced serious delays; it’s not clear when they will be built.

Construction on the Louvre Abu Dhabi began in 2009. The museum was scheduled to open in 2012, but the global financial crisis and the design’s complicated engineering caused setbacks.

The piece de resistance is the “rain of light” roof, made of eight interlocking layers of aluminum and steel and measuring 180 metres in diameter. As the sun moves through the sky, light filters through the geometric patterns on the dome, throwing raindrop-like patterns on the floor and walls. The roof is held up by four concealed concrete and steel pillars, creating the illusion that it floats.

“The roof is inspired by walking through a palm grove in a desert oasis,” said al Qemzi.

The philosophy behind the four-wing museum is based on the idea of the “universal museum,” said Jean-Francois Charnier, scientific director of Agence France-Museums, a company set up by France to oversee the project. Charnier is helping build the Abu Dhabi collection, which already includes 600 permanent works, ranging from a third-millennium BC statue of a Bactrian (ancient Iran) princess to Cy Twombly’s 2008 painting Untitled X-IX.

He said the exhibits will be arranged to show the influence and dialogue between civilizations. For example, funeral masks from Egypt, South America and China will be showcased together. In another room, the Qur’an, Bible and Torah will be displayed.

“It is going to take into account the question, ‘What is common in mankind?’” said Charnier.

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